Thousands
die but their lives are counted for some bucks and the buck is passed to be
forgotten conveniently totally ignoring the fact that who died were the fellow
human beings!
What sort of idiots we are or what sort of
idiots we are made to look like or what sort of idiots we have been made to be
fooled around so easily.
And resultantly and not so reluctantly we are
forced to think about the question and the prospect, time and again, with an
increasing frequency – are we a failed democracy? Are we a falling nation?
It is because ‘they’ have reduced the ordinary
Indian to a mere living creature whose life doesn’t matter; the living
creature, ‘the ordinary Indian’ who doesn’t figure anywhere on any priority
list.
Instead, ‘they’ comfortably prey upon the
developments to further their selfish agenda.
And even if ‘they’ look to come into some
action, it is because ‘they’ see some political points to score in a particular
case.
And who is this ‘they’ who has reduced us, the
ordinary Indians, to such a state of human ruin?
This ‘they’ is the ‘group’ that defines itself
from among us but places its members in a separate, superior class, pushing us
to the periphery.
It is a ‘they’ that claims to be our
representative only in order to claim the territory that rightfully belongs to
us, the Republic called India.
So, who is this ‘they’?
This ‘they’ is a macrocosm of almost of the
politicians, most of the bureaucrats, many of the business elite working in
collusion with the politicians, the goons and the goons-turned-politicians. Sadly,
the umbrella to cover the realm of ‘they’ is rapidly getting wider.
It is a ‘they’ that was once dependent on us and
is now fast becoming parasitic on us, working day and night to reduce us to a
life of ‘secondary and unwanted citizens’.
‘Their’ brazenness is in full fervour; is on
full display!
And we, the idiots, the common Indians, are
acting and are still poised to act as the mute spectators, allowing them to
further ‘their’ class of superiority at the cost of us.
THE
‘OCCASIONAL’ CRY WHEN SUCH ‘REGULAR’ CRIMES NEED SUSTAINED ATTENTION
Isn’t it a conspiracy that the kids who lost
their lives after consuming the poisoned mid-day meal in a government school of
Bihar become the subjects of the political blame game that soon crosses all the
limits of sanity?
And what about this characterized uproar every
time whenever many of us, sometimes in thousands, become victims of a man-made
systemic political apathy?
Why is it that we look to care for what caused
the disaster whenever a disaster takes place and then forget it conveniently
until next one happens?
This silence, or to say more aptly, this
ignorance, is a criminal negligence on part of all of us who are capable enough
to raise the voice.
It was not a long ago, in fact it was in last
July only when the nation had seen huge outrage over ward boys and sweepers
performing minor surgery, dressing and autopsy, potentially threatening lives
of the patients in Bulandshahr, Meerut and Balia cities of Uttar Pradesh,
India’s most populous but India’s most digressive state.
For media outfits, it was a potboiler generating
uninterrupted coverage of many valuable TRP hours spread across several days.
There were high-pitched debates and rhetorical campaigns to cleanse the society
of this malaise. The insensitive and shameless politicians and higher level
government employees, who were initially, as usual, in denial mode, were forced
to come forward. Yes, they did come forward after their characteristic delay
but they didn’t own the responsibility, something that always happens,
something that we recently saw in the course of the aftermath of the massive
Uttarakhand flash floods. They just passed the buck.
In fact, they always believe that ‘we, the
creatures, the voters, the ordinary Indians’ should get such treatment as it
would keep us dependent on them.
And so they create such situations that force us
to be in miserable condition and characteristically, whenever these ‘miserable’
conditions become fatal or epidemic, they first try to play down the scale or
shift the responsibility and if not successful, they put a shameless face of
concern promising the matter is being looked into and appropriate action would
be taken.
Appropriation action! An alternative political
catchphrase for it is ‘the toughest possible action’!
Now, see the toughness! In the very same Uttar
Pradesh, where a sweeper was performing autopsy last July, a rickshaw-puller is
filmed on camera this July, in a government hospital, giving an injection to a
kid that takes the kid’s life. And it happens in one of the cities, Balia, that
was in the eye of the storm last July for a similar medical negligence case.
See! This is how politicians see us – valueless,
soulless creatures who exist only to serve the political masters and their
cohorts.
Also, where were the media carriers, the activists
and the aligned advocates throughout this period where they could easily see
(and they have been witnessing it) that the rot was so deep and was getting
deeper owing to the political callousness. In fact, they too, act vague it can
be said. Whatever be the reasons and the considerations but the fact remains.
Why does it take lives of over 20 children to
make a war cry on such a poor status of mid-day meal scheme in India?
Why this flood of reports now only?
Why not a sustained socially responsible campaign
to put effective check on the system?
The rotten meal! It is an open fact that most of
us know very well. Just step in any government run primary or middle (class
6-8) school where the mid-day meal is served and the first reaction, if you are
from those of the metro middle class families, would be that you cannot eat it.
Search for reports and one will come across regular reports of mid-day meal
poisoning even from the metro cities like Delhi or Mumbai. The condition is
horrible in small town India and hinterlands and the Chhapra incident in Bihar
where 23 students of a primary school lost their lives after eating the mid-day
meal represents that horror.
And most of them (excluding the political
opponents here-they are the natural party to this crime) who are crying foul
are aware of this open fact. Why not then a sustained campaign to pressurize
the political class to act responsibly?
Like the horror of the mid-day meal, the ground
reality of the government-run hospitals and health-centers is also an open
fact. Anyone who can afford private treatment would never go to a
government-run health unit. Government doctors, busy in private practice, using
ward boys or sweepers as their replacement, is a commonplace thing and all of
us and the groups crying over the Balia hospital incident are well aware of it.
Why don’t the groups looking and acting
concerned at the moment run a sustained campaign against the politicians and
their administrative bedfellows to pressurize them to take responsibility?
Acting only in spurts when the problem has
already become chronic – the attitude is worrying. It is senseless.
It sounds more of the elitist concern of acting
as and when it suits the tastes and needs of those who can raise the voice and
not based on the needs of those who have been reduced by the politicians and
their various colleagues as the silent majority at the receiving end of their
every deed and misdeed.
It sounds like a sham! This façade has to be
removed.
Chronic problems like the systemic political
apathy and the political corruption need sustained efforts.
‘They’ who see us as lowly creatures need to be
shown the mirror to make them realize that ‘they’ are from among us only.
©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/
Incorporating the write-ups:
